Second judge blocks Trump’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B worker visas

On Wednesday, US District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, California, blocked an unprecedented $100,000 fee imposed by US President Donald Trump on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers. Gilliam ruled that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department had not followed proper rule-making procedures in implementing the fee.

The coalition of unions, employers, and nonprofits that filed the lawsuit requested the temporary block, which Gilliam granted. The fee, initially set to expire on September 21, was extended by Trump for another year before the judge's ruling.

The H-1B program allows US employers to hire foreign workers with training in specialty fields, with technology companies particularly depending on H-1B visa recipients. The program offers 65,000 visas annually, with an additional 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees. Trump's fee, which raised the cost of obtaining H-1B visas from $2,000 to $5,000, was based on the president's authority under federal immigration law to restrict foreign nationals detrimental to US interests.

He claimed businesses had abused the H-1B program, replacing American workers with cheaper foreign labor. The Department of Homeland Security had also proposed a new visa selection process favoring higher-skilled and better-paid workers.

The fee's temporary blocking in June by a federal judge in Boston was not paused by an appeals court. The White House did not comment on Gilliam's decision, but Democracy Forward, a left-leaning legal group representing the plaintiffs, hailed the ruling as protecting a system that had been "thrown into chaos overnight." The US Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying group, filed a third lawsuit challenging the fee's constitutionality.